Sam Ramji, the head of Microsoft's open source lab, is inviting Mozilla developers up to Redmond as part of a new effort to make sure the open source Web browser Firefox and the open source email client Thunderbird will run on Microsoft Windows Vista. The offer is part of a weekly lab session that Microsoft is holding with developers to reduce application compatibility problems.

"In the past, the company has only invited commercial software developers to these labs," Ramji said. "I'm committed to evolving our thinking beyond commercial companies to include open source projects, so I went to the nontrivial effort of getting slots for non-commercial open source projects," he said.

ODF Alliance applauds Massachusetts commitment to OpenDocument

The OpenDocument Format Alliance (ODF Alliance), a consortium of organizations, academia and industry dedicated to improving access to electronic government documents, has applauded Massachusetts for committing to move to ODF beginning in January. Massachusetts officials indicated that the ODF plug-ins, which are expected to preserve full accessibility for those with disabilities, will also support the state's information technology division's policy to adopt ODF.

Incorporating accessibility into the ODF standard was a key point of contention for critics of the standard, who said it did not adequately address the needs of disabled workers. A subcommittee of the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, or OASIS, is addressing several aspects of the specification that will make it possible to preserve accessibility information in the document format itself.

Open Season is a weekly feature that highlights open source news briefs, brought to you by the SearchOpenSource.com staff.

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